Warrior Goddess 2 - War and Peace
by White Aster
Summary: Earth was just the beginning of Mikaela's life as an Autobot. War, then peace, then war again takes her further from home than she ever thought possible. And as the Cybertronians' fight for survival and search for a home evolves, so does Mikaela. (Second part of the Warrior Goddess arc, including the end of the Great War, the Long Peace, and the Unicron War. Warnings for angst.)
1. Warrior Goddess 2 Notes

**Notes:**

\- Please note that this story is the second part of the Warrior Goddess arc and builds heavily on events from previous fics in the Warrior Goddess series.

\- This fic and the Warrior Goddess arc in general is being written out of chronological sequence and will also be posted out of chronological sequence. As a result, if you read everything as it is posted, you will be skipping about in the timeline and possibly spoilered for events that are not yet written. If you would rather read the story without "spoilers" from later chapters, please consider following only the first story in the series (Warrior Goddess 1- Earth) and checking out each chapter as it is posted for its position in the timeline before reading.

\- For an overview (and spoilerrific) timeline of the ENTIRE Warrior Goddess arc, including far-future events, please see the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1.


	2. Vulnerability

**Notes**: This story is set around ~10,000AD. Mikaela is a full-fledged Autobot warrior/medic and is known to most Cybertronians as "Firebrand". The 'Bots and 'Cons have declared peace and left Earth far behind, colonizing other worlds and mostly getting along in what's known as the Long Peace. However, that peace is slowly being crushed by the arrival of a new enemy: droves of seemingly mindless mechanoids that are slowly becoming more and more dangerous...

Please see the timeline in the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1 if you'd like more info on how all this comes about (warning, the timeline gives spoilers for the entire Warrior Goddess story arc.)

* * *

She brought up her sniper protocols. Secondary and tertiary sensors off, 80% processor power rerouted to targeting, energon pump off. Everything fell away, everything went STILL, even her. Still enough to let her fire at something miles away.

Even this far away, it was easy to pick out Starscream's trine. They were in the lead, slightly larger, pushing hard but keeping ahead of the slower flying drones easily. They were going to make it.

The other 20% of her processor pointed out that the Ark and the other escape vessels didn't have this line of sight. And with whatever the drone ship had done to the comms, Starscream's trine was running silent.

No one would know, the insidious little thought insisted, if she took them out now. She didn't even have to kill them. Just wound them enough that they couldn't fly, and the approaching land or air drones would take care of them. The Decepticon command trine was good, but even they were fleeing in the face of millions of mindless killing machines.

She thought of Hound. Fireflight. Freefall. Bluestreak, lying dead and scattered across his sniper's perch, where Starscream's trine had blown him to pieces. All the others that they had killed over the years. Starscream, laughing. Thundercracker, taunting her as she ran away, spark pounding.

No one would know.

Then the lead seeker's engines burst into flame and smoke, sending him spiralling downwards. She actually did a log check, but no, it hadn't been her. He'd gotten tagged by one of the drones. She tracked his fall, tracked the rest of his trine's panicked scrambling to cover him. From his trajectory, she guessed that he was not mortally wounded, but he'd probably be unable to fly. Thundercracker and Skywarp stayed in the air, slowing their flight and turning to engage their pursuers. Covering their now-ground-pounding trine leader. She tracked them for another breem or two: they were moving closer. Slowly (and there was a good chance either the flyer or ground drones would catch up to them), but closer.

She cursed, fervently, in two languages, then let the sniper's calm that Bluestreak had taught her settle in her struts and fired.

The lead flying drone went down trailing smoke.

The drones were not seekers. They were not smart. When she took out the lead three, they merely shuffled a bit, not enough analysis between them to even look for a long-range attacker. She fired again and again for a long breem , a drone falling each time. She transformed and headed to a different perch higher on the hill, where she could actually see the three seekers heading across the plain: the two in the sky covering the one on the ground and behind them a black haze of mindless machinery on sky and ground.

::Firebrand to Ironhide:: she snapped as she transformed back to bipedal, laid flat on her belly on the edge of the cliff.

:KKKKKRRRRKSHHHHshrrrrrrr:: Still jammed.

::Firebrand to Ark.:: The Ark's more powerful comm system might not be as affected.

::rrrrrkshrrrrrrrrrrrrrkKRSH-rckrrrrepeatsshhshhbrand?::

Thank god, she thought. She set her coordinates to transmit on a loop, in case they got interrupted. ::Ark, transmitting coordinates. Drone front approaching your position from the northeast at 30 k/breem, ground and air.::

::kSHRRrrrrrknowledgedrrrrrrkbrandrrrrrrrrshhhhdustoffrrrrrrkshshhhrrrstrosecondsshhhh::

Great, they wanted to leave. Not that she could blame them.

::Ark, Decepticon command trine moving ahead of front. I am covering their retreat. It'll be tight, but give us time to get there.::

::krrrrSHHHHHHHHHHHHHstroseconds::

::We will MAKE IT. DO NOT LEAVE US BEHIND, YOU FRAGGERS:: She transmitted one last burst of coordinates, then dropped the connection, engaging her sniper protocols again. Her vision telescoped down, and she could see the ground drones gaining. Starscream wasn't going to be able to outrun them. The sensible thing to do would be for the other two to grab and carry him, but no doubt they were leery of not being able to fight off the flyer drones at the same time. No, wait. One of them was SKYWARP. Why the hell hadn't he just -

Obviously this required actually talking with them. Damn it. She dialled up her comm all the way, hoping that they were close enough the jamming would be lessened. She started firing again, clearing out a few of the more adventurous flying models. ::Skywarp, for fuck's sake, grab him and GO. Our ride is leaving!::

::krrrrrrrrrrrrkrrrrsshfraggingCAN'TKRRRRSSHSHSHSHnergontoolowkrrrssssssssshhh::

Great. Just great. Another signal, probably Starscream but the static was really too bad to be certain, was there and gone: ::KRRRrrrrrrsshshshsDONOTshbandonkrrrrrshconshsshommanderhrrsssshstobot:: Yeah, definitely Starscream, who the drones were definitely gaining on.

She shunted some of her processor to tactical programming. Not that there was a lot of tactics that could be done on an open plain, being pursued by the mechanical hounds of hell. An amused part of her processor that never really turned off was grimly amused: she could add trying to save Starscream, along with fighting off the universal elemental force of chaos' minions, and fighting an intergalactic war, and becoming an alien space robot in the first place to her long, long list of Things Mikaela Banes Never Thought She'd Do.

Her tactical computer spit a few options back out. None of them were excellent, either in probability of effectiveness or probability of the drones catching up to HER.

No one would know, that helpful voice piped up again.

"I would know," she growled. And somehow, someway, OPTIMUS would know, and Mikaela would rather be Ironhide's punching bag for the rest of her ridiculously long life than have Optimus Prime look at her with disappointment. He was worse than her dad had ever been.

She checked her rifle's power pack (75%, good) and lobbed a burst of glyph shorthand at the seekers, hoping that it would weather the static better than speech. _Military maneuver: Seeker-support transport Seeker-leader by air, full speed. Sniper will cover._ Decepticons and Autobots used slightly different "dialects", but she was sure they could figure it out.

Three transmissions weren't long in coming, all variations on "unacceptable", "exposure", and "like HELL, Autobot".

Aw, they didn't trust her. How surprising.

"I'm hurt," she muttered. She re-engaged her sniper protocols, pushing her reply at maximum power, the glyphs caged in by superlative markers. _STUBBORN. STUPID. LIMITED OPTIONS. SNIPER WILL COVER._ She switched over to plasma expansion rounds, waiting until her targeting computer was certain she could land them where she wanted them and not on Starscream's stupid head, then firing once, twice, again, turning the first wave of land drones behind the Decepticon commander into superheated goo. The next drone wave hit the lavaslick and stumbled, lower bodies melting then cooling and sticking them to the ground.

The look on Starscream's face at that much firepower raining down from nowhere was precious and almost worth it right there.

She pulled her aim up to the sky, switching back to normal rounds to continue picking off the lead drones for a quarter breem. She was just about to scream at them for being stubborn aftheads again when Skywarp and Thundercracker dove, sweeping along the ground and coming up with Starscream clinging to their undercarriage. It looked like an awkward carry, but in perfect tandem they fired their engines again, picking up speed and starting to outpace the drones again. The drones for their own part responded with a hail of laser fire. She picked off the first few lead air drones with expansion rounds, grimly pleased at how the wide blast radius made the drones' shots go wide as they lost their targets. She fired until she was out of rounds and sicced her tactical routines on the scene again.

The seekers were moving fine, rapidly leaving the drones' effective range. Probability of escape, 91%.

Good enough for government work, she thought, subspacing her rifle and transforming. Almost before she hit the ground, she was racing down the hill, transmitting the drone front coordinates and her own to the Ark, along with indicators that they were all four accounted for and returning. All she got was a burst of incomprehensible static that she hoped meant "We're waiting for you" and not "oh, sorry, good luck!" Starscream and his trine roared over her head as she hit the level plain and accelerated to her top speed, then a little faster.

She made it with time to spare, though the drone flyers had gained on her and were closer than she would have liked when she charged up the Ark's ramp. A burst of familiar cannon fire and a gruff ::About damn time:: let her pick Ironhide out from the other defenders, Autobot and Decepticon alike, who were laying cover for the last groups of stragglers just inside the Ark's cargo bay. She zipped over to Ironhide, turned in the middle of transforming, and came down on one knee facing the way she'd come. She didn't even need the sniper rifle anymore. She let go with both arm cannons and hit with every shot. She barely had to pick a target. Behind the last group pelting up the ramp, the wide arc of horizon from east to north to west, ground and air both were clouded with ultraviolet-flecked black.

No sooner were the stragglers inside than the Ark's great engines roared, the ramp tilting upwards in obvious preparation for liftoff. "Did Starscream make it?" she asked Ironhide as they pushed inside.

Ironhide nodded, powering down his cannons, the barrels still smoking. The sound in the hold tripled as the ramp slammed shut, trapping in the sound of voices, commands, moans, and harried medics. Ironhide switched to comms. ::Came thundering in without a word three breems or so before you. Why?::

She wasn't sure what her expression was. It certainly couldn't have been a smile, though it twisted her lips like one.

Ironhide snorted as she told him what had happened. ::So that's why Starscream looked like a singed cat.:: He sent a databurst to her, video of the seekers landing, Starscream scowling and bitching as he stormed into the hold, ruined engines still trailing smoke. Ironhide's glyphs were amused, sarcastic. ::You do realize that you just saved the Decepticon command trine. Honestly, you couldn't have missed just a bit?::

Her laugh was hard, her optics already scanning the hold. There were injured mechs clustering against the walls, though fewer than she would have expected. Ratchet's voice rumbled from one corner, alternating between a soothing rumble and an irritated bark depending on who he was talking to. ::Not worth Optimus' disappointed look.:: Speaking of, she didn't see him. ::Did we lose anyone?::

::Too soon to tell. Optimus is on the bridge. Ratch, you, me, that's all I'm sure of.::

She tamped down the worry. _Bee..._

::All the other ships got off, though,:: Ironhide said. His hand came down on her shoulder, heavy and warm and precious as all physical contact, like the glyphs that grounded the sending, tinged military in the way Ironhide's always were. He knew the MIA list as well as she did. _Support-through-engagement._ We've got your back.

She reset her optics and nodded. _Acknowledged_, she sent back. _Strength-in-unity._

::Always,:: Ironhide growled.

Ratchet's comm broke in, clipped and hard and crawling with glyphs for responsibility and command. ::Get your aft over here. We've got wounded, in case you didn't notice.::

Mikaela clapped a hand briefly to Ironhide's forearm in farewell, her arms already rippling with the transformations to pull her weapons out of the way of her medical mods. She headed for the triage line. It was, unfortunately, hard to miss.


End file.
